This article writes about how Bing, the new Microsoft made search engine, is alread jumping ahead of yahoo to become the the number two search engine in the world, taking away market share lergely from Google. This is kind of interesting, as it's only been here for less than a week.

I wonder what's going on here. Is it beacuse it's Microsoft? Last time Microsoft tried to encroach on new territory, it introduced the Zune - which it has sold over 2 million of. Compare this to Apple's 150+ million iPods sold. I think the fact that Bing is now the default search in internet explorer adds a lot to the numbers. Suprisingly few people use Firefox or an alternative browser - a vast majority of the population still uses IE, so i suspectthat this contributes largely to Bing's massive growth.

I agree with you that Bing's instant popularity is probably due to the large percentage of Internet Explorer users and the fact that (as i understand it) Bing is their default browser (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/02/oops-bing-is-now-your-default-search-engine-on-ie6-whether-you-like-it-or-not/). The article also mentions that it could just be a very large number of test driving/ a result of the ad campaign and if I read the article correctly this data is only from the 5 days that Bing has been out, I think we need to wait and see how Bing does in the future before we make any conclusions about the future of search engines.That said, I tried Bing and didn't like it, maybe because it just feels different but still people gravitate towards what they know.

There's an NDA that's preventing me from commenting on this topic as extensively as I'd like. But suffice it to say that Microsoft is extremely interested in taking Google's market share and is investing substantial resources in making Bing's algorithms as good as they can be. Bing (I think) is still at a very basic level based on the concept of PageRank, but much refined based on user evaluations in the interest of providing relevant results.

One interesting way that Bing differs from Google is in its presentation of results. Bing focuses on a "Best match" and puts its sponsored results on the side in worse position than Google ads.

I think Microsoft is really taking advantage of information cascades and the fact that social networks have low diameter in supporting Bing. For example, Microsoft is spending over $100 million on its advertising campaign in order to reach many people and at least get them to try it out. If enough people try it out and like it, more and more people will begin using Bing simply through learning about it by word of mouth (Isn't that how we learned about Google?).

I think this is similar to the French vs. English problem we analyzed in class when some people could essentially be "forced" to switch to one language or the other. However, just as in the example, we'll have to wait and see how much better Bing is than Yahoo or Google (if at all) and if that difference merits switching. My guess is no because people are so used to using Google since the Internet became popular.

Bing is also fun to say, like Yahoo and Google. Wolfram Alpha, or even Wolfram, or Alpha, just aren't as catchy. Seeing as how Google is now a legitimate verb, maybe that has something to do with it, as well. I agree that being the default IE search engine is definitely key, though.

I think Bing's success is largely due to the fact that media gives it soo much attention as a Microsoft's second attempt to battle Goggle again after their previous miserable failure once known as Live Search. (not so Live anymore~)

Whether this hype will keep its momentum and continue to actually allow it to replace Google is entirely dependent on their long run performance.

Also, some people are already rolling out an acronym for Bing: “But It’s Not Google.”

Bing’s current popularity may be similar to Twitter’s novelty. A lot of users join, but a small fraction of those who join continue using it. This article in the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/technology/internet/11drill.html) talks about this more, specifically how Twitter’s retention rate is below 30% (Facebook has a retention rate of 60%).So unless Oprah makes Bing her official search engine, Microsoft may have to continue promoting their new product.